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MEMORIAL 



JESSIE WILLIS: 



PEEPAKED FOE I1EE LITTLE DATJGITTEES, 



ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE, 



3n tljcir Jatljer. 



*? NEW YORK: APRIL, 1858. 
[foe peivate cieculation.] 



JoaN F. Trow, Printer, 377 <fe 379 Broadway. 






>? 



THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



FUNERAL ADDKESS, 

BY REV. GEORGE H. HOUGHTON. 

[Delivered at the Church of the Transfiguration, Hew York, 
April 11th, 4858.] 

It has not beeu the custom in this place, my 
friends, in performing the present duty, to add so 
much as a single word to the simple and sufficient 
order, which the Church has provided, for the bu- 
rial of the dead. 

Hither childhood and youth, manhood, woman- 
hood, and age, — the father, the mother, the hus- 
band, the wife, the child, the brother, the sister, 
the " friend which is as thine own soul " [Deut. 
xiii. 6] — when their all of this world was over and 
their all of another begun, have been brought, that 
we might pay to their lifeless remains that last 
tribute of respect which piety and affection prompt ; 
and never yet, until to-day, in any case, has utter- 
ance been given to aught else beside the appointed 
sentences, and Psalms, and Lesson, and Anthems, 
and Declaration, and Prayers. Surely in this hith- 



4 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

erto unvarying practice, it need not be said that 
there has been no lack of love, no want of especial 
interest, in regard of the departed. For the near- 
est and the dearest have sanctified this spot. The 
practice has been observed from the single and sin- 
cere conviction that he, at least, whose office it is to 
minister here, could in nowise contribute to the 
further perfection and completeness of the prescribed 
ritual for the dead, — from the fear, rather, that his 
own words might mar its beauty and affect its im- 
pressiveness. 

But to-day, brethren, there must needs be a 
deviation from this course,— a few words must be 
ventured beyond those provided by the Church. 
And this, not so much that we may attempt that more 
than mortal task of comforting him, whose voice 
and hand have here so long, for the glory of God, 
enhanced, as never another, the sweetness of our 
songs of joy, and the mournfulness of our strains of 
woe — albeit is his this day a universal sympathy ; 
not so much that we may commend to God's more 
than ordinary protection and blessing those mother- 
less little ones — albeit, most fervently, that is now 
done — each of whom these hands have consecrated 
to Him in Holy Baptism ; not so much that we may 
seek, in any degree, to soothe the voice once heard 
in Rama, or strive to minister strength to age sink- 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 5 

ing underneath the weight of its own ills, now so 
greatly aggravated ; nor so much because that, 
in this place, and from these hands, she, who 
is now before us, received for the first time the 
sacrament of that Body and that Blood which, we 
doubt not, have preserved her soul, and ivill pre- 
serve her body to everlasting life : for in this par- 
ticular respect hers is no peculiarity. 

But, my brethren, our hitherto unvarying prac- 
tice in burying our dead, is broken for the single 
and simple reason, that there is in the present case 
that which demands something beyond and above 
all this — which distinguishes it, in so far as my own 
experience is concerned, from every other. It is be- 
cause that in this sanctuary, on this holy day, in the 
presence of the dead and before you all, with every 
thing to restrain all rash, exaggerated, unpremedi- 
tated utterance, I wish to pay this high tribute and 
bear this consoling testimony to the memory of our 
deceased sister. 

For twelve years a merciful God has, of His 
goodness, permitted me to be the minister of His 
comforts and His grace to the sick and the dying. 
During that time — blessed be His name ! — He has 
never called me to stand beside a single person who 
by word or outward gesture, manifested a reluc- 
tance, or even an unwillingness, to die. It has ever 



6 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

been my happy lot to minister in my measure to 
such only as at the last, to all human appearance, 
fearlessly and calmly stepped into the cold waters of 
the river that flows between us and our heavenly 
home. I do not know that I have ever witnessed 
an unhopeful or an unwilling death, whatever at 
first may have been the natural shrinkings and ap- 
prehensions. But here, before God and you all, I 
testify that her death, whose lifeless remains are in 
our presence, has been the crown of them all. With 
every thing to bind her here — with the yearning 
love of a mother, who from beyond the half- closed 
gate of death could hear her infant's voice, and re- 
turn to fold to her bosom each of her children, and, 
most lovingly of all, that little one for whose life, 
Rachel-like, she was giving her own ; with the sat- 
isfied heart of a wife, who, twining her cold arms 
around the neck of him in whom her earthly heaven 
was centred, could say that not a word or a look 
had ever been otherwise than she desired, that he 
had been her all, her every thing, that the past 
seven years had been years of such unmingled hap- 
piness; with every thing of worldly circumstance 
that could contribute to the comfort and enjoyment 
of life; with none but friends; and in the opening, 
too. of nature's sweetness and beauty (this bright 
spring-time of bud, and leaf, and flower !) — more 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 7 

gently, more calmly, more cheerfully, with, more 
of childlike trustfulness than any other that I have 
ever known, she left all, and followed the Good 
Shepherd to the still waters and the green pastures. 
Yes, beloved ! with no bitter past ; with no 
painful present ; with no unhopeful future ; with no 
poverty ; no lifelong, incurable malady ; with noth- 
ing to render the world a weariness, but every thing 
to attract and bind thee here, — I bear thee witness, 
in this solemn hour and in this holy place, that, by 
the power of the divine grace vouchsafed thee, more 
sweetly, more calmly, with more cheerful and entire 
resignation, didst thou bow to the will of God, than 
any other, of all that I have ever known, has done, 
whom want and lingering disease, and woe, and 
every infelicity had long and wholly deprived of 
every enjoyment, of every anticipation. In mem- 
ory, then, of that midnight communion; in mem- 
ory of the consecration of thy babe in Baptism by 
thy dying bed ; in memory of the ineffable tender- 
ness of thine every look and gesture ; in memory of 
the plaintive sweetness of thine every word ; of the 
childlike touch ingness of thine every tone ; of the 
hitherto unimagined depth of Christian feeling and 
purity and grace, which thy last agony so wonder- 
fully revealed ; and in memory of thine eyes, so 
constantly and trustfully returning to rest upon the 



8 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

lineaments of the Crucified in view of thy dying 
pillow, — at this hour, in this place, in this presence, 
when words should be measured and tones even 
subdued^ I, thy friend and pastor, bear thee testi- 
mony, that though in death many daughters have 
done virtuously — thou— thou — thou — hast excelled 
them all. [Prov. xxxi. 29.] 
April 11th, 1858. 



COMMUNICATION. 



COMMUNICATION 

From the Rector and Vestry of the Church of the Transfig- 
uratioii) JVew York. 

1 East 29th Street, ) 
April 15th, 1858. J 

My dear Mr. Willis : — At a meeting of our 
vestry, on Monday evening, April 12th, 1858, 1 was 
directed to convey to you the inclosed expression of 
our sympathy with you in your present bereave- 
ment ; and to have a copy of the same entered by 
the clerk in the book of our minutes. 

In complying with the direction, let me also 
myself assure you how fully we each condole with 
you. May the God of all consolation Himself com- 
fort and support you with the thought that perhaps 
she therefore departed for a season, that thou 
shouldst receive her for ever. [Phil., 15.] She has 
entered into her chamber, and shut the doors 
about her, and hidden herself but for a little mo- 
ment — the moment of time. [Is. xxvi. 20.] 
Most faithfully and affectionately 

Your friend and Pastor, 

G. H. Houghton. 
1* 



10 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

" Forasmuch as it hath pleased our Heavenly 
Father, by the removal from among us of Mrs. 
Jessie Willis, to remind us that, to rise with our 
crucified Saviour, we must first, in very deed, pass 
with Him through the valley of the shadow of 
death, 

" Therefore, he it resolved, that we hereby 
express our deep sympathy with our respected asso- 
ciate, Mr. Richard Storrs Willis ; while with him 
we rejoice in the full assurance of the present hap- 
piness and future eternal bliss of her who, when 
with us, — by her innate purity, by her perfect sim- 
plicity, by her true humility, by her thorough un- 
selfishness, by her unconscious exhibition of the 
graces which adorn the Christian wife and mother, 
— afforded us an example which we may well hold 
up as one worthy of devout imitation. 

" May we, when called upon to pay the penalty 
of our first parents' transgression, with equal cheer- 
fulness resign all we may so justly hold most dear 
on earth, and, with like unlimited faith, repose 
upon the bosom of Him who hath opened unto us 
the gate of everlasting life." 



F. E. Siffken, ) C. V. A. Schuyler, 

G. B. Docharty, \ Wardens. g< HyatTj 

A. A. Alyord, C. Zabriskie, Jr., 

W. B. Ballow, A. Embury, 

N. W. Chater. 



CLOSING REMARKS. 11 



CLOSING REMARKS, 

BY REV. G. W. PORTER. 

[In a Sermon delivered at Christ Church, Manhasset,the mothers usual 
place of worship during the summer months.] 

* * * It is in view of the Divine truth, which 
we have now been considering, namely, Christ's 
power to destroy death and to redeem his victims 
unto eternal life, that we would, in conclusion, ad- 
dress words of Christian sympathy and ghostly 
comfort to those of this congregation who have, in 
the Providence of God, been called so lately to fol- 
low to the grave the mortal remains of one who, in 
the respective relationships of daughter, wife, moth- 
er, and friend, was all that was filial, conjugal, ma- 
ternal, and true. Suddenly called from hence to 
the unseen world, she has left, as an unspeakably 
precious memorial to all who lament her early 
death, the clear and consolatory evidence that she 
was eminently fitted for the great and final change 
that has overtaken her. Having been endowed by 
nature, as I have been informed, with peculiar 
amiability and gentleness of disposition, as a Chris- 



12 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

tian, all the more winning characteristics and attrac- 
tive graces of the Spirit marked her mortal career. 
And although highly "blessed in all her earthly rela- 
tions, yet, as a faithful disciple of Christ, she held 
all things earthly and temporal in holy subjection to 
the will of her Heavenly Father. Her daily life 
was thus a daily preparation for death. In Christ 
she lived while yet in the flesh; in Christ she died 
when the flesh was laid aside ; and in Christ her dis- 
embodied spirit, we doubt not, now rejoices and tri- 
umphs. Her last expiring breath was expended in 
solemn but joyous commemoration of that infinite 
and final sacrifice which was consummated on Cal- 
vary by the Son of God, for the sins of the whole 
world. Her filial trust in her Heavenly Father 
thus became brighter and more profound as the pas- 
sage of her mortal spirit grew darker and more 
lonely ; so that it may in truth be said of her, that 
she passed hence to the world unseen, " having the 
testimony of a good conscience; in the communion 
of the Catholic Church; in the confidence of a 
certain faith ; in the comfort of a seasonable, reli- 
gious, and holy hope; in favor with God and in 
perfect charity with the world." 

Let those, then, who, from their personal and 
intimate relations to the departed, mourn her sudden 
and early removal from this imperfect state to the 



CLOSING REMARKS. 13 

blessed and glorious home of the redeemed, be com- 
forted with other and more than earthly comfort ; 
for from earthly and temporal sources cannot be 
drawn that profound and divine consolation which 
alone has power to soothe the bereaved heart and to 
speak peace to the agitated and troubled spirit. 
Therefore hath Christ died to atone for sin and to 
vanquish death. Hence is He the sinner's only 
Saviour, the mourner's Divine Consolator, the celes- 
tial Enlightener of the grave, the Resurrection of 
the dead and the Life of the world to come. In 
Him, therefore, repose; in Him assuage thy grief; 
in Him be comforted ; in Him, and in Him alone, 
be both now and eternally blessed. 
2 



14 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 



LETTER FROM MR. BRYANT. 

Roslyk, October 11th, 1858. 

My dear Mr. Willis : — I am glad that you 
think of doing honor to the memory of your late 
excellent wife, by putting into a volume the testi- 
monials to her worth, in the hope that they may 
hereafter awaken in her children and other de- 
scendants a desire to imitate her example. It ap- 
pears to me, that I have scarce ever known a 
character, the elements of which were so happily 
proportioned and combined, as a preparation for in- 
grafting on it the graces and virtues of a highly cul- 
tivated moral and religious nature. An instinctive 
benevolence, which embraced all her fellow-crea- 
tures, strong domestic affections, freedom from all 
taint of hatred or envy, a great unwillingness to be- 
lieve ill or speak ill of others, the most amiable do- 
cility, an earnest desire to obey all the calls of 
duty, the most cheerful contentment in the ordinary 
condition of life, and the sweetest patience under 
adverse circumstances, were always remarkable in 
her daily life ; and it seemed to me that, with the 
advance of years, these qualities acquired consist- 



LETTER FROM MR. BRYANT. 15 

ency and strength, and ripened into a more beauti- 
ful and harmonious whole. 

I was, as you know, in a foreign land when I 
was startled with the news of her premature death, 
the circumstances of which were fully related to 
me. It then occurred to me, that if such a calam- 
ity could admit of consolation, her friends must 
have found it in the calm religious resignation with 
which she gave up a life which had been so happy, 
meeting death as an event of which she had no fear, 
and making for it the most wise, thoughtful, and 
affectionate dispositions. 

It seems, therefore, in the highest degree proper, 

that, cherishing her memory as you do, you should 

seek to give it some more permanent repository than 

mere personal recollection, which must pass away 

with the lives of those who were so fortunate 

as to have known her. As one of that number, I 

shall be happy if my testimony to her virtues shall 

be thought worthy to be included in the memorial 

you are preparing. 

I am, dear sir, 

"With great regard and esteem, 

¥m. C. Bryant. 
R. Storrs Willis, Esq. 



16 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS, 



NOTICES OF THE PRESS, 



No. 1. 
FROM THE N. Y. EVENING POST. 

[BY PARKE GODWIN.] 

A large concourse of relatives and of sympa- 
thizing friends was gathered at the Church of the 
Transfiguration, in Twenty-ninth street, yesterday, 
to participate in the funeral ceremonies of Mrs. 
Richard Storrs Willis, wife of the editor of The 
Musical World. The occasion was in itself full of 
sorrow and tears, but the attending circumstances — 
the weeping April day, the crowd of mourners, the 
impressive service of the Church, the solemn burial 
chants and the few simple and touching words of 
the pastor, Mr. Houghton, (more touching in their 
simplicity than the most elaborate eulogy,) in which 
he portrayed the sweet serenity and cheerful resig- 
nation of the deceased in her last moments — deep- 
ened the hue of the emotions naturally incited by 



NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 17 

the event. Death is always awful ; but when its 
pale hand falls, as in this case, upon the young, the 
amiable, and the happy, carrying them suddenly 
away from the brightest scenes of life — bereaving 
aged parents, who expected to go before — leaving 
little children, unconscious of their loss, motherless, 
and a devoted husband desolate and alone — it falls 
with an appalling and stunning effect. Mrs. Willis 
died on Friday last, after a week's suffering, from 
having given birth to a daughter. 

Our great poet, connecting the fall of the leaf 
and the decay of the year with the departure of 
cherished friends, derives a mournful consolation 
from the thought, that it is " not unmeet the gentle 
and the beautiful should perish with the flowers." 
And, in the same spirit, we may suggest, that 
neither is it wholly unmeet that they should go in 
the spring of life and in the spring of the year ; for, 
the concurrence may remind us that, like the flow- 
ers, which are bursting into bloom upon earth, they, 
too, are bursting into the bloom of another and 
more radiant sphere. 



18 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

No. 2. 
FROM THE HOME JOURNAL. 

[BY N. P. WILLIS.] 

The funeral of Mrs. Jessie Willis, which took 
place on Sunday, the eleventh instant, at the Epis- 
copal Church in Twenty-ninth street, was, from 
many combining circumstances, unusually impres- 
sive. Residing opposite the vicarage and directing 
the music of the church, Mr. Willis with his fam- 
ily held almost the same relation to its sacred asso- 
ciations as the family of the pastor. The funeral 
was separate from the usual service of the after- 
noon ; but, as the body was borne across the street, 
and received at the entrance with the playing of a 
solemn dirge and with the reciting of the initiatory 
passages of the burial ceremony, the two naves of the 
beautiful structure were densely crowded with friends 
and mourners. The coffin was deposited before the 
chancel, and in the course of the service was sung 
one of the most affectingly-beautiful chants it has 
ever been our privilege to hear. It was composed 
by Mr. Willis on the occasion of the death of the 
mother of the clergyman who was now to perform 
the service, and had been sung before, only on that 
one occasion. But. in addition to this touching in- 



NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 19 

terest, it was sung by one who was a personal friend 
of the deceased, and who, as a singer of sacred mu- 
sic, is probably without an equal. Julia Bode- 
stein's voice, coming, as it always seems to do, 
through tears, was intensified, in the singing of this 
chant, to a weeping agony of sweetness almost super- 
natural. To the unutterable grief of the mourner, 
it seemed, for that moment, to reach and lend an 
utterance ! The rapt and tearful singer sang w T ith 
her heart as well as with her wonderful skill, and 
there was a spell in it, it is not too much to say, 
which might well make the Angel of Death look 
back with sorrow on his victim. 

Mr. Houghton, the clergyman, departed from his 
usual custom, by coming forward to the railing of 
the chancel and introducing the service with a brief 
address over the body. The young mother who lay 
before him had been one of the purest and loveliest 
of his flock. She was one of those rare complete- 
nesses of character for whom their share of happi- 
ness in this world seems just enough. In the last 
hour of her life she expressed her thanks to God 
that, as a wife and mother, she had been as entirely 
blest as she could conceive it possible to be. Sim- 
ple from her exceeding purity, beautiful in person 
and of manners made most winning by her utter 
unconsciousness and disinterestedness, she was too 



20 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

natural to seem to the common eye the exception 
that she really was. And, to these qualities allud- 
ing delicately, Mr. Houghton paid full tribute to 
the dead as one of the children of his flock. It was 
an address of subdued and touching tenderness, and 
marked throughout with exceeding judgment and 
good taste. 

The service over, and the handful of earth 
thrown upon the cofhn, the body was borne to the 
hearse, attended by the vestry of the church as 
pall-bearers ; and the funeral procession then went 
upon its way to Greenwood. Mrs. Willis was there 
laid in the family vault of her father, Mr. Cairns. 
She leaves three children, the youngest of whom is 
but three weeks old — a puerperal fever, consequent 
upon its birth, having been the occasion of her most 
sudden and unexpected death. 



No. 3. 

FROM THE N. Y. LEDGER. 

[by fanny fern.] 

I have been to a funeral to-day. It was in a 
church ; — I had to pass through a garden to reach 
it; — the warm rain was dropping gently on the 
shrubs and early flowers, and inside, warm tears 



NOTICES OP THE PRESS. 21 

were falling ; for before the chancel lay a coffin, and 
in it was a fair young wife and mother, pale and 
sweet as the white flowers that lay upon the coffin- 
lid. Near it was her husband, and beside him were 
her aged parents, bowed down with grief that she, 
who they thought would close their fading eyes, 
should fade first. In a house opposite the church, 
were the dead mother's babe, only a few days old, 
and two other little ones, just old enough to prattle 
unconsciously as they went from room to room, 
" Mamma has gone away." I knew, though they 
did not, how day after day would pass, and these 
little girls who had always seen mamma come 
hack again, after she had " gone away," would 
stand at the window, looking this way and that, 
with their little bright faces, and listening for her 
light footstep, and my heart ached and my eyes 
filled as I thought, how every day as they grew 
older they would need her care, and feel her loss, 
the more ; for it is only in part that a father, even 
the kindest, can fill a watchful mother's place ; — he, 
whose business must be out of doors and away ; how 
can he know how weary the little feet get wandering 
up and down, with no mamma's lap to climb upon ; 
how weary the little hands, — putting down one 
thing, and taking up another, with no mamma to 
nod smilingly and say, " I see" — or " it is very 



22 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

pretty, dear;" how home-sick the little rifled heart 
feels, though it scarce knows why ; how tasteless the 
pretty cup of milk mamma used to hold to the rosy 
lips ; how empty parlor and nursery, chamber and 
hall. How much less gentle is nurse's touch than 
hers ; how much sooner she wearies of answering 
little curious questions ; and getting bits of string 
and toys for restless fingers to play with ; how much 
longer seems the time now, before papa comes home 
to dinner and tea, — poor papa — who with an iron 
hand crushes down his own great sorrow, and tries 
and fails to speak to them in her soft, sweet, winning 
way ; and tries and fails, to soothe their little insect 
griefs, though he would die to save them a heart- 
pang. 

All this I thought of as I looked at these two 
little curly-headed girls and their baby sister ; and 
I said to myself, I do not know why God took away 
their young mother whose work just seemed begun, 
and left the aged grandparents who were waiting to 
go. Why he made that house desolate and sileut, 
once so musical? Why he turned those tender 
lambs out from that soft warm fold ? With all my 
thinking I could not find that out; but I am just as 
sure as if I could that he did it in love, not in an- 
ger; I am just as sure as if I were in heaven this 
minute that it was best and right ; though they, and 



NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 23 

you and I, must wait till we get there to know the 
how and why. 



No. 4. 
FROM THE MUSICAL WORLD. 

[BY EDWARD HODGES, MUS. DOC.] 

The sorrows of domestic life, howsoever poig- 
nant, are seldom of a nature to permit them to be 
obtruded upon the public eye. Yet peculiar cir- 
cumstances may sometimes render it improper to 
avoid all allusion to them. 

The readers of the Musical World ought to be 
informed of the great calamity which has suddenly 
befallen Mr. E.. S. Willis, the justly esteemed editor 
of this paper ; if for no other reason, in order that 
they may extend to him their Christian sympathy 
in his heart-rending affliction. Mr. Willis has been 
bereft of his tender and affectionate wife, whose 
pure companionship had gladdened his heart and 
converted his home into as much of a paradise as is 
allowed to mortal man. A few short, rapturous 
years elapse, and that joyous presence ceases. His 
house is left unto him desolate. May his heart be 
comforted by Him who alone can assuage such 
grief, even " the God of all comfort." 



24 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

The contemplation of death is at all times fear- 
ful. When the aged are cut down, after an active 
life of prolonged and honorable usefulness, we mourn 
their loss. It is hard to part with an old friend. 
Our tears must flow. Love demands them, and 
love is of heavenly birth. Even the blessed Jesus 
wept at the grave of Lazarus. 

But there is something intensely affecting in the 
decease of a young and lovely wife and mother. 
Our souls are stricken with grief which knows not 
words. 

Yet there is hope. Beyond the narrow grave 
there is a region of bliss unspeakable, and thither 
we trust the happy spirit of our dear departed friend 
has flown ; for her humble trust was reposed in Him 
who has said, " Come unto me, and I will give you 
rest." 

" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord ; 
for they rest from their labors n 



GERMAN POEM 



25 



(5m Sroft, 

gitr 

91 i d) a r b <S t o r r 3 23 i 11 i 3 . 

[From 27ie Musical World.] 

J^yfl b>ter bein @rab ? SBoJjf betnen 9Zameu fdjriefeett 
<5ie auf bte3 [d)mucf(o3 ftide ^reuj unb ^aben 
Xein ftktb bauu, beine J^fitte, fyier begraben; — 
©ie mag — »a3 frommt 1 3 ju Uagen? — Ijier jerftiebcn. 

2)u bifi ja bod) lebenbig mir gebtieben, 

SStr ftrebten nid)t nad) irb'fdjen £iebe£gaben, 

Sort unter Stcmen fel) 1 id) nun ertyaben 

£ein 33Ub mtr leucbten, rein, ioie unfer £ieben. 

2tid)t bort atlein in jenen fel'gen Sftaumen 
©ud)t bid) meitt £er$ unb finbet bid) mein Singe ; 
3Iud) fyier, too id) nod) frifd)e3 Seben fange, 
Umfd)ioebft in tnic^ im 2Bad)en, trie in £raumen. 

Serffart tyaft bu aufs 9teu 1 mir biefeS £eben, 

Sfttt atten Saubern ber ^atur oerbunben 

(Bet) 1 id) bein 33Ub a(3 £eud)te sor mtr [d)ioeben» 

£urd) bid) bab 1 id) jum £td)t ben 23eg gefunben. 
2)u leljrft mid) l)anbeln, nad) bem £b'd)fren ftreben, 
23i3 id), ioie bu, ba3 £eben itbenounben. 

eijetb^itle, Rq. Son 3. £♦ SCappti 

2 



26 



MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 



LINES 

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. JESSIE WILLIS. 

After life's eventful mission, 
In her truthfulness and worth, 

Like a calm and gentle vision 
She has passed away from earth. 

Lovely she in frame and feature ! 

Blended purity and grace ! — 
The Creator in the creature 

Glow'd in her expressive face ! 

Angel of a nature human! 

Essence of celestial love ! 
Heart and soul of trusting woman, 

Gone to her reward above ! 

Mourners, dry your tears of sorrow — 
Read the golden promise o'er : 

There will dawn a cheerful morrow 
When we meet to part no more. 

Geo. P. Morris. 

Undercliff, Cold Spring, 
Nov. 11, 1858. 



LETTERS FROM FRIENDS. 27 



LETTERS PROM FRIENDS, 



No. 1. 

FROM REV. SAMUEL COX. 

[Formerly Rector of Christ Church, Manhasset.] 

1343 Lombard st., 
Philadelphia, April 12th, 1858. 

My dear Mr. Willis : — The intelligence has 
been to me most sad and startling of your dear 
wife's sudden death. I have learned, as yet, none 
of the circumstances of her illness, yet I cannot re- 
frain from saying to you, in the first impulse of my 
grief for her departure from us, a word of sympathy 
in your sorrow, which is, oh ! so much heavier. She 
was one of the last whom I had ever thought of, as 
Death's subject and choice. There was about her 
so much living and ever-breathiDg kindliness and 
gentleness of spirit, that the thought of her, and the 
love for her, entwined itself unconsciously around 
one's heart and led one to repose too quietly and 
confidently in the sunshine of her presence. Ever 
since I have known her, and more especially since 



28 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

that evening when I joined together you and her 
in that holy bond, I have felt that to know her bet- 
ter was to love her more. Do I speak of her thus 
only to add to your grief at her loss ? Nay, my 
dear friend, but with the thought in my own heart, 
which I would offer to yours, that she whom we 
have so loved hath been also loved by One, of 
whose abiding and all-caring love that of husband, 
and parent and friend, is but the imperfect and 
faint reflection. And is it not in very token of His 
acceptance of her, — those natural traits of loveli- 
ness being all refined, and yet more elevated and 
purified by her love for Him and by the mysterious 
sanctifying of His Spirit, — that He has now called 
her to Himself and to her eternal home ? She has 
had her troubles, but they are over now, and her 
sweet spirit has gone, we trust, in God's great 
mercy, where only happiness is its portion. She 
has left with you, in those little motherless ones, 
her memorials, at once your care and your living 
remembrances of her. 

May that sure comfort come to your sorrow 
which the Great Comforter will give to all, who rest 
upon Him their faith and their hope. 
Believe me, my dear friend, 

Most sincerely yours, 

Samuel Cox. 



LETTERS FROM FRIENDS. 29 

¥o. 2. 
FROM KEY. GORHAM D. ABBOTT. 

Spixgler Institute, N. Y., 
Sabbath Evening, April 18th, 1858. 

My dear Sir : — I scarcely know whether out 
acquaintance with you and yours justifies my offer 
ing to you the assurance of that sympathy in your 
bereavement which we most sincerely feel. There 
are, however, a few lines, which have been such 
a source of sweet, suggestive solace to others, in 
similar sorrows, that I will venture to transcribe 
them, in the hope that they may be grateful to 
you. I am sure, from what we have heard, they 
must be peculiarly appropriate to the circum- 
stances of your loss. 

"A YOICE FROM HEAYEK" 

I shine in the light of God, 

His likeness stamps my brow, 
Through the shadows of death my feet have trod, 

And I reign in glory now. 

No aching heart is here, 

No keen and thrilling pain, 
No wasted cheek, where the frequent tear 

Hath rolled and left its stain. 



30 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

I have found the joys of Heaven, 

I am one of the Angel Band, 
To my head a crown is given, 

And a H^rp is in my hand. 

I have learned the song they sing 

Whom Jesus has set free, 
And the glorious walls of Heaven now ring 

With my new-born melody. 

No sin, — no grief, — no pain, 

Safe in my happy home, 
My doubts all quelled, my fears all slain, 

Mine hour of triumph come. 

Friends of my mortal years, 

The trusted and the true, 
Ye are walking still thro' the valley of tear$ 

And I wait to welcome you. 

Do I forget ? ! No,— 

For memory's golden chain 
Still binds my heart to the hearts below, 

Till they meet and touch again. 

Each link is strong; and brio-lit, 

And love's celestial flame 
Flows swiftly down, like a river of light, 

To the world from which I came. 



LETTERS FROM FRIENDS. 31 

Then why should your tears flow down, 
And your heart be sorely riven, 

For another gem in your Saviour's crown 
And another soul in Heaven. 

Accept the assurance of our prayer, that " God, 
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father 
of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforteth 
us in our tribulation, may comfort you with the 
comfort, wherewith we ourselves are comforted of 
God." 

I am, with much esteem, 

Yours sincerely, 

Gorham P. Abbott. 



No. 3. 
FROM MRS. DAtfi SHINDLER. 

Will Mr. Willis allow a stranger to intrude for 
a moment upon his sorrow, while she strives to utter 
a word of consolation ? I have experienced the 
same sorrow, and know what it is. When a child, 
during a visit to Boston, I saw your mother, and 
loved to stand at her knee, because I fancied she re- 
sembled mine; and I have now a distinct recollec- 
tion of her motherly, benignant counteaance. On 



32 MEMOEIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

this account, I have always felt an interest in her 
children. So I know you will excuse my intrusion. 

COMFORT IK SORROW. 

Calmly the wife and mother sleeps 
On her cold bed, in hallowed ground ; 

While he who loved her lonely weeps, 
Nursing his grief profound. 

But ever, 'mid his deepest gloom, 
Comes there a whisper to his ear, — 

" Why bend you o'er this silent tomb ? 
Your loved one is not there ! " 

Raise up thy head, dejected one ! 

Look upward to the sun-lit skies ! 
See what a glorious home is won 

When the believer dies ! 

Her bright young life is brighter now 
Than when she lived upon thy smile ; 

Earth has its cares — and even thou 
Could'st not those cares beguile. 

" Rejoice with those who do rejoice," 

As well as " weep with those who weep ; " 

Then, with glad songs and cheerful voice 
Her heavenly birthday keep. 



LETTERS ER0M FRIENDS. 33 

Ye are not parted ; — she may be 

Thy ministering angel here ; 
And where thou pray'st, on bended knee, 

She may be with thee there. 

Ye are not parted ; — she may wait, 
When thy Eedeemer calls thee home, 

To meet thee at the golden gate, 
Saying, " Come up hither, come ! " 

No. 71 West 17th street, N. Y. 



No. 4. 

The following thought, in a letter of congratula- 
tion on the birth of little Jessie from her grand- 
father, Mr. N. Willis, of Boston, addressed to the 
mother — but not received till after her death — is 
perhaps not out of place here. In speaking of the 
three little sisters, he says r 

" I hope they will all live to love and serve the 
Lord. And there is one reason to hope they will, 
because there are a great many more female Chris- 
tians than male. The female sex have the greatest 
share of the curse, and the greatest share of the 
blessing. They were last at the cross and first at 
the tomb of our Saviour. I think that they never 
denied him nor forsook him." 
2* 



34 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 



TO MANY FKXENDS. 

One of the consolations which a great sorrow 
brings with it, is its clearer revelation to us of our 
friends. Friends known and friends unknown. 
Our known friends appear to us in a light touch- 
ingly new ; and our unknown friends become sud- 
denly manifest to us. This has doubtless been 
the experience of many a person who has been called 
upon to pass through deep waters and who has 
therefore been led to think better of the world 
and his fellow-men : but it is new to me — and I 
confess that the unsuspected kindliness of strangers, 
thus revealed, touches me deeply. 

One of the uses of this little volume, indeed, 
which I chiefly prize, is that it may be made to 
reach if possible each one who has been thus mind- 
ful of me and mine, to whose kindness I could not 
in every case personally respond and to whom I 
would thus show, that such kindness was not un- 
heeded by me and is not forgotten. 

But, to those who were actively of service during 
the last trying scenes of death and burial, I can- 



TO MANY FRIENDS. 35 

not refrain from an expression of special and heart- 
felt thanks — among such are the tender and 
unwearied lady-watchers at the bedside of the 
dear departed ; my beloved friend and Rector, 
Mr. Houghton; my kind fellow-vestrymen of the 
church ; Mrs. Bodstein, whose pathetic requiem so 
deeply appealed to us ; Mr. William S char fen- 
berg, whose subdued tenderness reached us through 
the organ; the dear boy-choristers of the church 
and their leader ; and (in many kind offices, then, 
as in days past) my faithful friend, Mr. Charles 
Gould. 

R, S. W. 



36 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE: 

FROM THEIE FATHER. 

My dear little Daughters :■ — You are very 
young now. Annie is not yet four, Blanche but a 
year and nine months and Jessie four weeks only ; 
and yet you are not too young to have lost the most 
precious thing you will ever have in this world — 
your mother. My little lambs are now left deso- 
late in their fold : the dear, gentle shepherdess^ 
who so tenderly cared for them, has been taken 
away. But He, who so softly lured her to His 
fold, is the Good Shepherd himself; who, I am 
sure, will not suffer the winds of this world to visit 
my little lambs too roughly. 

Poor, dear mamma ! — she was so youthful, so in- 
nocent, so unspotted of the world, that when I think 
back upon her she seems more like an elder sister 
of yours, than your mother,, my darlings ! 

One of these days, when you are older, you 
will begin to think, and think, more and more. 
When you see other little girls who have their 
own, Irving mothers, you will think much of your 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 37 

poor dead mother — and I am afraid you will be 
heavy-hearted : and it* is for this reason that I 
have wished to leave you all I could that is sweet 
and comforting about her, to console you, even when 
I myself, perhaps, may be no longer with you to 
talk about her. I have, therefore, had put into this 
little book some of the true and beautiful things 
which were said about her when she was lying dead 
in God's house, among flowers and among friends, 
and some that were written about her when she was 
taken to that beautiful garden, where she is now so 
peacefully sleeping — the same garden* where the 
other day, dear Annie, you said you wished you 
might "go and always sleep with dear mamma, 
too." 

Well, Annie dear, such is often, of late, my own 
wish. But we must wait. And when He, " the 
dear God," as you tenderly call Him, sends word 
to us, that in the day of our life it is now sun-set, 
and the sweetest of any bed-time has come ; that the 
soft pillow and the beautiful garden are ready for 
us — then we shall go : and we will try to bid the 
world as cheerful a good-night as dear mamma : 
not that we are tired of it : no ! — but because 
the Good Father is waiting for us. 

Besides what others have so beautifully and 
truly said, it has seemed to me, however, that I, 



38 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

too, ought to say something about her who is gone : 
for of course I knew her better than any one else pos- 
sibly could— although, indeed, it appears to me that 
even I did not truly know her until she came to die ! 

So let me begin by telling you a story : and I 
doubt not you will pretty well understand it before 
I proceed very far : — and even though there may 
be some things, possibly, that are not quite so clear 
to you now, you will grow up to their meanings : 
for I intend this little book as a continual memo- 
rial to you of the dear mother who is gone. 

I will begin my story, then, just as little Annie 
generally begins hers : — 

" Once ago " — there lived in a great city a rather 
solitary young man, who, after passing many years 
in foreign countries, had returned at last, having 
lost sight, in the interval, of most of his school and 
college friends and forever lost sight of some of 
those whom he loved best in the world. His life 
had hitherto been a smooth and happy one ; for 
Heaven had signally provided for him in every 
way. But now a change had come. His resources 
all fell away and this world was beginning to go 
very hard with him — the harder for its previous 
kindness. He had not much money — none, indeed, 
but what he could daily earn for himself ; and a 
stranger in a large city finds it very hard to earn 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 39 

any money at all. So he lived in the top room of a 
house and began to devise means to earn a living. 
After a little while he succeeded in making some- 
thing by writing for the newspapers : shortly after- 
ward he found he could earn still more by playing 
an organ in a church — for sacred music had ever 
been to him a delight and a study. In a short 
time, also, a very kind person who taught in some 
schools and was going away for a year, proposed to 
him to take his place while he was gone. So just 
now he was getting on very nicely and began to 
feel more sanguine. Yet money will not buy off 
loneliness, though it will buy bread and clothing ; — 
and besides, some things happened in his life, just 
then, which caused him to know this world from a 
very harsh and rough side; so that the sloping 
roof of his attic room seemed to press closer and 
closer down upon him and he found it more and 
more difficult to write about the gay, pleasant things 
of which it was his province to write in the news- 
papers. 

One evening, just at twilight, he had climbed 
to his solitary attic quarters when, on opening the 
door, he thought his foot passed over a slip of pa- 
per — but it was so dark that he could not clearly 
distinguish what it really was. So, stooping to 
pick it up he found it was a card ; and on the card 



40 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

was written an address, and a message, that a cer- 
tain person wished to have an interview with him, 
on a matter of business, at a certain house in the 
city. He read the card over many times and 
supposed there must be some mistake ; for he 
neither knew the address, nor had he ever been 
used to receive business applications — hitherto 
being obliged to seek business ; business rarely 
seeking him. However, he went the very same 
evening to the house indicated ; but, instead of pro- 
ceeding immediately to enter, he crossed to the 
other side of the street and passed and re-passed the 
house ; for he thought it very strange that he should 
thus have been sent for. At last, however, ashamed 
of his indecision, he crossed to the house, rang and 
a servant answering the bell he was shown into a 
very pretty and neat parlor. Here he waited a few 
moments, wondering more and more at the myste- 
rious message, and who might have sent it and 
what was wanted. Finally the door opened and 
through it there seemed to enter, suddenly, a ray 
of soft, warm sunlight — which pervaded the room 
and shone deep down into his heart : for there came 
forward a fair young creature, dressed in pure 
white, her soft, wavy hair taken back a little from 
her snowy temples and her face illumed with a 
kind of indescribable, unworldly light. 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 41 

Now, the young man had wandered about a 
good deal in the course of his life and had seen 
much of the light of this world's beauty; but it 
seemed to him that he never before had looked 
upon just such beauty as this, or seen a face of 
such entire innocence and purity. So he felt a 
kind of awe stealing over him in the young crea- 
ture's presence ; — and, I dare say he behaved 
himself very awkwardly, not helping forward the 
first few moments of the interview as he should 
have done : for the blood mantled in her face a mo- 
ment. But she soon regained her simple and uncon- 
scious manner and begged her visitor to be seated. 

She then went on to say that she lived in the coun- 
try — her parents having a country-seat not far from 
the city ; but that they also had apartments in the 
house where she was then staying, it being the resi- 
dence of her father's business-agent : — that not 
very far from their country home was the church 
which they attended : in this church was an organ, 
but there was no one to play it : — that therefore 
she and the other young ladies of the church had 
thought they might learn to play the organ and 
take turns in the church service :— that a friend had 
said her visitor was well acquainted with the organ 
and would perhaps communicate some knowledge of 
the instrument to her. 



42 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

So, then, all the mystery of the card and the 
message was thus unravelled. 

Now, under ordinary circumstances the visit 
would probably have here suddenly ended, for the 
young man had just then so much other occupation 
that he had hardly a moment to himself — and how 
could he possibly find time to be escorting a strange 
young lady to a church and talking with her about 
an organ? Besides, although he played quite a 
majestic instrument, he had never properly learned 
to play ; having slipped into organ-playing — he 
scarcely knew how himself. So it must be con- 
fessed, that if the lady had been very old or very 
plain, he would simply have said that he did not 
give organ-lessons and would have gone away. In- 
deed, he did go so far as to say that he did not 
teach the organ and had never given any lessons. 

Thereupon the young lady seemed to grow very 
embarrassed, thinking evidently that she had made 
a great blunder and sent for entirely the wrong 
person. 

But now her visitor quickly interposed again — - 
for there was a certain strange movement, way down 
in his heart, which something, whenever and by 
whomever felt, is the movement of Destiny. So he 
went on directly to say, that if she would allow 
him he should, nevertheless, be very happy from 



43 



time to time to tell her all he knew about the or- 
gan and she could, if she liked, attend the rehear- 
sals of his church- choir every Saturday evening and 
see how he played; that any day, or every day, 
while she remained in town, she could go to the 
church and play as differently and as much better 
than he did, as she liked. 

Now the young lady evidently showed by her 
manner that things were taking an entirely wrong 
turn ; and yet she did not know how to change or 
improve them ; she seemed to shrink from being un- 
der obligations to any one, particularly an entire 
stranger ; indeed, it was all very awkward and very 
embarrassing : her parents were not in the city to 
consult with — and what should she do ? So, in her 
dilemma she probably did just what she really did 
not intend to do — and accepted the young man's 
proposition. 

A few days passed, and Saturday came. The 
summer twilight was approaching and the two new 
acquaintances were threading the streets of the noisy 
city toward the quiet church, within whose massive 
walls the world and all its dissonance seemed to die 
away. And now it appeared to the young man, that 
he heard low music in his heart whenever she spoke. 
Bv the time the church was reached the twilight 
had much deepened, so that when the two were 



44 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

about entering a chapel on the side of the main edi- 
fice, through which an entrance to the church was 
usually gained during the week, the deep shadows, 
within, caused both instinctively to hesitate a mo- 
ment. But soon a light began to glimmer and they 
saw the sexton kindling a torch, by the light of 
which they entered and proceeded through the 
chapel. As they passed into the grand and solemn 
church and down the long aisle, the shadows danced 
on the lofty arches overhead and the flickering 
torch tipped with light the golden pipes of the or- 
gan, far, far in the distance above them. 

And now the soft footfall of the young creature, 
as she swept quietly along, and the gleam of the 
torchlight on her white figure, which caused her ap- 
parently to stand forth alone from the darkness, 
sent a thrill through the young man — for she seemed 
to him like a white angel, gliding through the 
church, two other figures darkly accompanying her. 

So the group passed out at the aisle-door and 
up the winding stairway that led to the organ- 
tribune. Here a jet of gas was soon kindled and 
threw a brighter light immediately around them — 
but its brilliancy seemed to stray off and be lost 
in the dark recesses of the church beyond, tipping 
here and there a projecting cornice with light, and 
leaving all else in deepest shadow. 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 45 

And now the organist's desk was opened : fcr 
the instrument was so constructed that the player 
sat at some little distance from the organ itself, 
leaving an intervening space for the singers. In 
this intervening space the white figure of the church- 
angel — as she now really seemed — stationed itself. 
The stops of the soft swell-organ were drawn and 
distant voices, far back in the heart of the instru- 
ment, answered obediently to the player's touch. 
The tones seemed to come to him from some airy 
realm and with a strange and weird sweetness, for 
the white figure was between him and them — and 
they floated through her to his ear. 

After a prolonged kind of music-dream, in which 
the young man ventured to say a great many things 
in the vague language of music which he would 
hardly have cared, perhaps, to utter in the plainer 
language of words, the choristers began to arrive : — 
and soon the rehearsal of God's worthier praises 
commenced. And now the organ — that majestic 
Preacher of glad-tidings — began to reveal its no- 
blest resources ; the deep-mouthed pipes launching 
forth their voices into the distant arches and the 
singers adding holy significance to the harmonious 
tumult — the white church-angel all the while look- 
ing dreaniily on, with the same smile of unworldly 
sweetness in her face. 



46 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

The multitude assembled ou the following day to 
render their accustomed homage. Young men and 

maidens rehearsed their praise from the choir and she 
too was there, imparting to the serviees — as the or- 
ganist thought — a still purer and holier significance. 

On the following day both were in the church 
again and then the organ first began to answer to 
the touch of the young maiden's fingers, while her 
companion arranged the stops, or leaned musingly 
upon the desk, his thoughts floating off upon the 
rich waves of Mendelssohn's music, which he had 
given her to play, or his eyes watching the tender 
light in those sweet eyes of hers. 

And thus passed several happy days and weeks. 
Sometimes the two were in the church together : 
sometimes she was there without him : but he al- 
ways knew the hour when she was at practice and 
the thought that she was in so pure and safe a place 
was a very pleasant one to him. But yet a few 
weeks more — and all this had ceased : she had re- 
turned to her country home. At parting she hesi- 
tatingly said, that her parents, she doubted not, 
would be happy to see her friend and repay with 
hospitality what she found could not otherwise be 
cancelled : — and then the great city lost a gleam of 
sunshine — a certain grace and beauty departed 
from it. 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 47 

In about a month from that time the sense of 
this lost presence in the air of the city grew so op- 
pressive, that the young man could bear it no longer ; 
so one summer day he followed the dove, which 
seemed to have flown from his heart, to her country 
nest. And 0, what a sweet nest it was, my dar- 
lings ! — Descending a wooded hill-side there lay, in 
loveliness before him, a Swiss-looking little village, 
at the head of a bay. On a higher level, still, than 
the bay, was a lake, with cottages dotting the shore 
here and there, while in the clear bosom of its water 
was mirrored the surrounding hills. The silver 
bay stretched far away in the distance and skirt- 
ing it was a winding and shady road that led past the 
beautiful home of a great poet — and then came a 
noble old estate, and a little lake was at the foot of 
the lawn and on either side of the lawn stretched 
up a superb avenue of trees to a dear old Dutch 
homestead. As you approached the house there was 
a view, from under lofty trees, of the glittering bay 
beyond ; and a cool breeze drew past you ; and the 
honeysuckle and the grape-vine twined luxuriantly 
about the porch ; and a dear, motherly old lady ap- 
peared in the parlor ; and shortly after the ray of 
beautiful sunlight entered the room again and shone 
deep down into the young man's heart. This first 
visit to the dear old place was not the last one, — 



48 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

you may be sure, my pets ! And so it happened one 
day, that with every thing captivating about them 
and the birds singing as though their hearts would 
break for sheer happiness, that these two young peo- 
ple fell a-weeping — which is sometimes the way, my 
darlings, when we become too happy in this world, 
Heaven suddenly sending tears, as much as to say, — 
" take care — take care — there is but a step, often- 
times, between a great happiness and a great grief." 

Pretty soon, however, there was a wedding : and 
the name of the fair young creature was changed 
from Jessie Cairns to Jessie Willis ; — for, of 
course, my darlings, you have already guessed that 
my story was all about dear mamma and one whom 
she made so unspeakably happy by marrying — your 
father. 

And so, we have been living all this time in our 
beautiful home which you know so well, — the sun- 
light from which has now departed. * * * 

But come — go with me to our lonely parlor and 
let us talk about mamma. She was not only so sim- 
ple and pure-hearted, so innocent and so true, but 
she had such sweet little hidden gifts and accom- 
plishments of her own, which no one seemed to 
know very much about. 

Look at these beautiful leather- work frames 
which so finely set off the engravings they surround 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 49 

and stand out so richly from the frescoing of the 
walls — yonder Madonna, and the infant Saviour 
bearing the cross, and St. John and others — all 
are the work of her dear hands ! Look at those 
brackets, too, supporting the white statuettes — how 
beautiful they are, with their pendant buds and 
flowers ! Those two under the arch between the 
rooms were the last she ever made — and we put 
them up ourselves one evening, just where you see 
them, only a few weeks ago. And observe those 
charming crayon sketches of the old abbey and the 
ruin — how nicely drawn they are ! And open that 
portfolio on the table : see what beautiful flower- 
painting ! — was ever any thing more life-like and 
exquisite than that cluster of forget-me-nots ? On 
yonder mantel, also, are two of her vases — the 
chastest and prettiest work in potichomanie I ever 
saw. Was she not a bright, gifted young mamma ! 
And observe, too, in the arrangement of these 
rooms how much elegance and taste must have 
dwelt here these few happy years. How thought- 
fully every thing is placed, with a view to a certain 
harmouy and appropriateness of surrounding : the 
uses of light, so carefully studied — all that requires 
subdued shadow at a little remove from the win- 
dows and every thing that needs strong light near 
them : the effect of proper elevations, too, not for- 
3 



50 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

gotten — that darling little group of quail, for in- 
stance, just the right height for the eye, so that 
every body can stand and really enjoy it. Among 
the things which must necessarily disappear from 
our drawing-room observe, too, my darlings, yonder 
superb bouquet of autumn leaves, arranged so 
charmingly in the Indian canoe and suspended 
from the picture-rod to the wall. Those leaves, 
and the bright red berries peeping out between, were 
the last things we usually gathered, each autumn, 
before leaving our cottage at Roslyn : for arranged 
in this way they reminded us, through all the dreary 
snow-time, of pleasant country life. 

And then her music — why, my darlings, it was 
not until we were some time married that I ever 
discovered how accomplished she really was in 
music ; for she always seemed disinclined to play 
or sing for me. But one day as I was sitting alone 
in the dining-room after dinner, she having left 
some moments before, I suddenly heard the keys 
of our beautiful u Grand " in the drawing-room 
swept so lightly and tastefully, with such easy grace 
and chaste expression, that I was surprised and 
thought some accomplished musical visitor must 
suddenly have come in. After listening for a few 
moments I got up and peeping through the half 
open door — whom should I see but the dear little 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 51 

mamma herself ! There she sat, in her sweet little 
French cap, her face all beaming with musical 
pleasure and really puzzling me with an execution 
and a taste which I never dreamed she possessed. 
She afterward showed a decided talent, too, for 
musical composition : — I found, indeed, that years 
before, even, as a very young girl, she had composed 
an epithalamiumj so-called, which had become a 
great favorite everywhere and to this day is well 
remembered and sung. Not long after my dear 
Annie was born, too, as she sat one evening with her 
young baby in her arms rocking thoughtfully back 
and forth, in that sweet kind of reverie into which 
she sometimes fell, I heard her half unconsciously 
improvising a beautiful little lullaby — the very same 
one which very soon was caught by all nurses, far 
and near, and to which many babies are to this day 
rocked asleep : — and it always seemed to me the 
prettiest little piece of heart-music in the world ! 

But now let us cross the hall to the library. In 
yonder bay-window, which commands that charming 
landscape of our sweet little church and its pic- 
turesque grounds just opposite (the prettiest place 
in all the city !) she used to sit with you, my pets, 
so proud of you — so proud of you ! — and while those 
skilful and never-idle little fingers spirited together 
in (to me) so very mysterious a manner such a sue- 



52 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

cession of little baby clothes, or some dainty French 
cap which she knew your papa liked, (and she 
never at all liked them herself, but wore them only 
on his account) there she would amuse you and be 
amused by you, for the hour together, while Annie 
made her wise little remarks about people and 
things in the street, and Blanche bounded from the 
window to the rocking-horse and from the rocking- 
horse to the window. And then when the neigh- 
bors passed and greeted her, she shed down upon 
each of them a ray of her own bright heart-light, 
which seemed so fresh and new each time ! and if 
she thought that they looked admiringly at her 
babies (she could never think that they ever looked 
at her!) then she was the happiest, proudest lit- 
tle mamma in the whole city ! 

But ah — she had a kind smile for others than 
for comely and kindly neighbors. The poor and the 
destitute of the city knew on cold, winter days, where 
there was always a bright, happy face to be seen and 
an open hand to befriend them. She never sat any 
the less at the bay-window, moreover, because they 
found that out, and came very often and always in 
greater numbers. None ever applied in vain — each 
received something: even the poor, unsoliciting 
German, who came with his dog-cart for the ashes, 
was astonished now and then with a hod-full of 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 53 

good fresli coal, thrown by the servant upon his 
heap of dusty cinders Money — food — clothing — 
fuel — each was contributed in its turn, as she 
deemed most necessary : so lavishly contributed, 
indeed, that at last the very servants in the house 
thought that their little mistress was going alto- 
gether too far, giving away so many needful house- 
hold things, and they have told me (within a few 
days only) that they would actually hide away the 
keys of the store-room and closets from her, when 
they could get them, lest all the really-needed 
clothing and provision should disappear from the 
house. During the last hard winter, particularly, 
this charity of hers (about which I heard compara- 
tively little — for she rarely spoke of it) was very 
active. One special object of it was a wretched 
little boy, who one cold day came shivering and 
staggering up the front steps, having caught sight 
of so pleasant a gleam of human sunlight in the win- 
dow. He was pale and very sick — mortally sick, 
indeed, even then, of an incurable disease. From 
that moment this little boy became her special 
charge : and when it was said in the house that the 
" little sick boy had come," then the servants knew 
that no evasion and mislaying of the keys was of 
any avail. The day came at last when the little 
boy could no more leave his home — and then she 



54 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

went to him. He could live at last only on stimu- 
lants, and the purest and the best she took care were 
always his. But even more than on stimulants did 
he seem to live on her kind smiles, in which the little 
fellow appeared to find, always, fresh life and hope. 
At last he seemed to become so very tenderly at- 
tached to her, that when she came into his sick- 
room he would burst into tears. He hardly knew 
why he cried, but — " his dear Mrs. Willis was so very 
kind to him." And thus she continued her visits 
to him until up to the time of his death — nearly to 
the time of her own death, my darlings ! — for long 
after she should have visited him she still continued 
to go : and when her tears at last mingled with his 
dying tears, it was a very moving sight. Poor, 
dear mamma ! — she followed him soon ! — only a few 
weeks afterward ! — 

But now come up with me into the nursery. Here 
was her real pride-place ! Here she chiefly lived — 
this was her world. Here were the little baby- 
clothes; here were the play- things; here, too, was 
that industrial miracle — a sewing machine. The 
play of the ivory piano keys was often quick enough 
under her fleet fingers, but it was nothing to the 
play of that swift needle when the little French cap 
and the bright, eager face hung over it ! What a 
droll, triumphant expression when the click of the 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 55 

machine became sharper and sharper, and more and 
more impetuous, and a little frock, a little apron, a 
little pinafore -was turned off from it as though by 
mao-ic ! I well remember when that sewing-machine 
first met her view what a knowing little look she 
gave it — for she had a singular fondness for mech- 
anism and — any one could see — unusual aptitude 
for it. And so when I came home, that very 
evening, I heard a most mysterious buzzing and 
spinning and — somebody did not look up at all from 
her work as I entered the room — and somebody had 
a face full of laugh and suppressed merriment — and 
somebody soon presented somebody with a beautiful 
specimen of machine-sewing ! Nor only at the 
sewing-machine did she show her cleverness at 
the needle, for the prettiest hats I ever saw in 
the city were always her hats — and, my darlings, 
she made them herself! So when her gay and 
dressy lady-friends could not but remark upon 
the taste and beauty of her winter bonnet, or her 
spring bonnet, and inquired with natural curiosity 
what milliner she employed, — it was a trying ques- 
tion for the little milliner-mamma ! — it being- a novel 
thing, somewhat, in a city like this, that a lady 
should make her own bonnet. But yet, no real mil- 
liner could make one that was half so pretty, or half 
as well pleased either her husband or herself. And 



56 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

you can judge from this, my dear little daughters, 
where some of the money, at least, that went to the 
poor sick boy, and to the poor and suffering of the 
city, might have come from — she saved it on her 
bonnets, her caps, her own and her children's 
clothing. 

Now, when I think over, and put together, all 
the bright and clever things she did, both of ele- 
gant and useful art, — her leather-work, her poticho- 
manie, her crayon-drawing, her flower-painting, her 
piano-playing, her music-composing, her skill as a 
needle-woman, her careful and ever-perfecting house- 
keeping — she, too, a child bred in luxury, who had 
never had a household care or thought until she 
married me ! — when I think of all she really accom- 
plished and remember her keeping up at the same 
time so large a visiting acquaintance, (which, it al- 
ways seemed to me, was a business in itself,) why, 
my darlings, — of course I speak as her husband and 
great allowance must be made for my partiality 
and love for her, — but I do really think she was a 
perfect little wonder-mamma ! 

And yet, she thought so humbly of herself ! — and 
always as of some simple country lassie, to whom 
green lawns and fresh flowers were much more nat- 
ural than city drawing-rooms and a life on velvet 
carpets: — and yet, when placed in the city and 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 57 

amid very much that was conventional and artificial, 
she came across every one like a breath of fresh air : 
and she was so natural, and unaffected and artless, 
so entirely unconscious and at ease, that she seemed 
like the highest-bred lady possible — as just for these 
very reasons she really was! — Every body loved 
her, though in many respects so unlike themselves. 

No, my darlings, — your dear, lost mamma had 
not what usually passes for worldly tact and world- 
ly wisdom, for everybody read her like a book. 
Neither had she artificial manners, nor habits : but 
she had that, which, for even worldly uses, is of such 
inestimably greater value — she had fresh, pure na- 
ture : a clear head, a sound judgment, a pure heart. 
She had, consequently; that which is often based 
upon these — a singular, natural insight into charac- 
ter and motives of action : so that people were often 
at fault with her ; she seeming sagacious, when she 
was only natural and saw and judged the world 
through her own transparent and guileless mind, 

Nor only her principles but her first instinctive 
impulses were singularly pure and free of taint. 
When she heard any thing ill of a person, the first 
movement of her mind was indignantly to reject 
it : — when any thing commendable, her mind was 
equally quick to accept, and cherish it. Of her 
own sex it was especially difficult to make her 
3* 



58 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

think aught that was evil — and the evil that she saw 
actually did exist, she invariably ascribed to out- 
side, bad influences, working through those womanly 
affections which, in themselves, she believed pure 
and unselfish. This point I have often known her 
emphatically and — when in any way opposed — in- 
dignantly to insist upon. The strongest feeling I 
ever saw her evince was thus in behalf of her own 
sex, when instances of the wrong of man — cases 
which she could not doubt — came to her ear. 
Yielding and docile as a child in most things, the 
man was hardly forgiven or forgotten who deliber- 
ately caused an innocent woman to suffer. Argu- 
ment was of no avail with her : deep as was her 
love of justice and goodness, equally deep was her 
hatred of injustice and wrong. I never really un- 
derstood the holy indignation possible to an angelic 
being (simply from the pure heights of virtue from 
which this world's wrongs are viewed) till I knew 
your mother, my darlings ! And so it came to pass, 
that those who knew her hest respected her most 
and hesitated long before they did aught really to 
forfeit her good opinion, or call up that severest of 
all resentments — the resentment of a naturally in- 
nocent and pure spirit. 

I tell you these things, my dear little daugh- 
ters, because you yourselves will one day be women 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 59 

and will know how to prize this quality in your 
mother. 

People differ very much — as you will find, my 
children — in natural cheerfulness and brightness 
of disposition. Your mother had an eternal sun- 
shine in her heart! She awoke with it; she fell 
asleep with it. She carried it about with her like 
an atmosphere. When she passed through a room 
she seemed to leave a smile in the air. You knew 
not why, but you felt cheerful and hopeful and happy 
whenever she came near you, or had been with 
you; you were courageous and strong, when before 
you had been, perhaps, desponding and doubtful. 
And this, not that she had said any thing, or done 
any thing, perhaps, to animate you, but she looked 
hope — and courage — and belief in this world — and 
trust in God ! 

But now come up stairs with me to my study 
Here we used to pass our evenings at home — and 
what happy evenings they were ! " No parties to- 
night, dear Dickon," she would say : u how delight- 
ful ! — let us put out the drawing-room gas and close 
the shutters, so that we shall seem to be out and 
have a dear, sweet evening at home ! " 

" Yes, — here we are — but please shut the door, 
Jessie." 

" 0, — let me leave it open a little — just a crack" 



60 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

" Why ? — the cold-air comes in." 
iC Yes — but — my babies, you know." 
"Well, you know they are all safe, — the nurse 
is with them down stairs." 

" Yes — but then — if it is all the same to you, 
Dickon — just a little." 

In short, I yery soon found that tender heart of 
hers could never be persuaded really to shut a door 
on her children. " One little crack," I always 
observed, was invariably left open, though the cold- 
air came in ever so much, or the babies were ever 
so safe : — for she could not bear to shut them out, 
even in their sleep, from a seeming companionship 
with her and a participation in her own happiness. 

Thus, then, with every thing to her mind, the 
door a little ajar, the fire burning brightly, her even- 
ing work before her, then came, for me, the reading 
or the writing, or the dear old songs we both of us 
loved so well, or some dreamy improvising on the 
sweet-toned ^Eolian piano, or the reading of some 
manuscript article for my paper — for I always 
availed myself of her clear little mind as to what I 
wrote : and if the comments that followed were not 
quite up to her usual cheery tone of commendation 
I concluded that I had not written any thing very 
bright, and afterward quietly put it in the fire, or 
re-modelled the whole. 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 61 

Thus passed the happy hours, and days, and 
years. But they could not last for ever ! — Let U3 
descend, now, to the front bed-room. * # * 

Hush ! — my darlings — here she died ! — A very 
holy and solemn place. Full of heart-ache for us — 
but ah ! full, too, if we will but rightly regard it 
(which, alas ! it is so very, very hard sometimes to 
do) of heart's ease to those who can truly realize 
the sleep in Jesus. 

— It was God ? s will, then, four weeks ago, to 
give you that darling little sister — so white, so 
fair — Jessie we call her — and in mysterious ex- 
change to take to Himself the other Jessie of our 
love. God could spare his pure child no longer : — 
the angels wanted their bright sister. And so, — she 
faded from us. 

Do you observe yonder " Christ " — that hangs 
on the wall opposite the bed ? A very solemn pic- 
ture, by Albrecht Biirer — a single white figure on a 
cross, against a dark background. It seems not so 
very long ago, that I observed her, day after day, 
thoughtfully working on the frame that surrounds 
that picture. She twined the passion-flower about 
it — her own sweet conception of what was signifi- 
cant. When completed, she hung it where you now 
see it, directly in view of her pillow. Beneath the 
picture, on the mantel, she placed yonder statuette 



62 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

of St. John, by Thorwalsden, — the apostle, with 
head erect, seemingly recording on that tablet in 
his hand the sufferings of his adorable Lord above 
him. On either side of the picture are heads in 
relief of the Saviour with his crown of thorns, and 
of Mary his mother. 

It seems to me, my darlings, as though even at 
that time your sainted mother were preparing, by 
that sacred group of objects, holy windows through 
which her soul might, first in thought, and afterward 
in reality, wing its way outward and upward to other 
worlds. For when it came to the last dread hour, 
her eye became steadfastly and unwaveringly fixed 
on the Divine Sufferer : — through the film of the 
descending night, through the forms of friends who 
might chance for a moment to intervene, she seem- 
ed, still, to see only The Christ. 

It was on Good Friday, then, of April 2d, 1858, 
that God gave us the tender little lamb that yet re- 
mains to us and touched for the sacrifice his other 
lamb — your mother. that dread Good Friday ! It 
should be " good " to us, for death is good if through 
it and by it we attain unto a better life. But Fri- 
day, to human feeling and despite our better judg- 
ment, is a dread day. what a chill it always has 
for me ! Alas for us, too, my darlings, on that very 
day, Friday week, Death entered our happy home ! 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 63 

On the day following the birth of little Jessie, 
you, my dear daughters, were on the bed all day 
long, delighting with your joyous prattle about 
the dear little sister your only too proud and happy 
mamma — who looked so well, so well, that it seemed 
unnecessary she should even remain upon her pillow. 

The day following was Sunday and I crossed 
the street to the dear little church, the grounds of 
which were beginning to grow so beautiful again 
under the smile of spring, the first delicate spray 
and the tender blossoms just appearing : and I 
played the exulting organ with even more than 
usual gratitude to Heaven ; while the boy-choristers 
seemed to me to quire more joyous praise to the 
good God than ever. 

On my return — what a change ! — That sweet 
face — what had come over it ! — The very shadow of 
death seemed to be there ! # * * 

Poor mamma was in great agony. She told me, 
with piteous tone, that she had had a chill. Ah, — 
the chill of death, I believe, even then, my darlings ! 

And yet, on Monday she seemed to be much 
easier and we almost hoped again — even my little 
Annie and Blanche were taken by their grandmam- 
ma to the country, that in the sweet sights and 
sounds of the old homestead they might forget the 
sad faces of their city home. 



64 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

But, on Tuesday a raging pulse and more anxi- 
ety. On Wednesday, the shadows still darker — 
darker — and on the afternoon of that day our good 
physician first spoke to me of additional medical 
advice. Ah — I knew too well what that meant, 
my darlings ! 

And so he came — another and older adviser, 
and the sagacious eye, which could not be deceived, 
confirmed what could not have been hid from 
others. 

On Thursday the dread question had to be de- 
cided (and God spare you ever in this world the 
sharp agony of that question !) — who shall tell 
her ! 

The good physician thought himself stronger 
than I, and so he left me in the library for a little, 
— but soon returned from her. 

With feet that seemed to cling to the stairs and 
a heart all lead within me, I ascended to the dying 
room. * * # 

That same bright, happy smile again ! — just as 
sweet and fond as ever ! And when the uncontrol- 
lable tears would flow she exclaimed, — " What is it, 
my darling ? — I am better and easier now. The 
doctor, I am afraid, has unnecessarily alarmed you 
about me." 

And so, I saw that the dear eye, which had always 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. Q5 

so instinctively turned to the light, could not sudden- 
ly comprehend the dark — the doctor's words had 
been gently chosen — she had not understood him ! 

But, my darlings, the idea had been lodged in 
her mind and, though neither of us then alluded 
further to it, the next day when the doctor came 
and I was out of the room, she asked him calmly 
the momentous question : — and he was frank with 
her! 

Serenely, quietly, like an announcement of re- 
turning health, she received the appalling tidings ! 
" Comfort, my dear husband," were her first words. 
And yet her secret surprise was very great : for she 
soon afterward said to a lady friend, — " Can it be 
possible ! — surely, I have not suffered enough yet 
— to die ! 

And so, that night a trusty messenger was sent 
for the absent mother and you, my babies. To- 
ward midnight the little pleading note of pain 
which had continued for hours, seemed to be grow- 
ing fainter : those sweet, acquiescing little expres- 
sions which she uttered in her wanderings, now and 
then, — " Yes, darling — yes — yes, darling " — be- 
came less frequent : the bright face began to have 
strange shadows in it, and so, at dead of night, we 
sent over for the good Rector. He came to us ac- 
companied by a gentle companion, who even at mid- 



66 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

night could look upon death. And soon the last 
sacrament was administered, — the dying bed of the 
gentle sufferer being both chancel and altar to us who 
knelt around, while her pale lips opened, for the last 
time, for bread and for wine. Then came prayers 
and hymns for the dying : — 

" Nearer, my God, to thee, 
Nearer to thee ! 
E'en tho 1 a cross it be 
That raiseth me ! 

* * * * 

" When the spark of life is waning." 
" I would not live alway." 

But this last hymn seemed to me suddenly in- 
applicable : — 

" The few lurid moments that dawn on us here 
Are enough for life's woes, full enough for its cheer." 

no, — no ! — the daily testimony of that sweet 
spirit had been, " Life has been so beautiful ! — not 
a cloud ! — not a cloud ! — I have been so happy — so 
happy ! " How then could we say, that of such a 
life there had really been " enough ? " no, — the 
Good Father called her — for this reason, alone, she 
was content to go ! 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 67 

The dread Friday dawned upon us. I remem- 
ber being entwined in cold arms and my head 
pressed close to a dying breast. I remember sweet 
words breathed into my ear — words of cheer and 
encouragement. I remember, — alas that I should 
remember ! — words of praise and gratefulness, of 
pride even — for each word brought with it such a 
sense of my real unworthiness of her, such silent 
reproaches that my kindest words had not been 
kinder — that any indifferent words had ever been 
spoken ! 

I remember a dear little baby brought and 
placed for the last time in her mother's arms. The 
eye that was already glazing in death suddenly 
cleared itself and grew bright again — a flush man- 
tled the pale cheek. What a change ! — the whole 
face is radiant. " Jly darling ! — how beautiful ! " 
Then, with all a mother's rapture and pride she 
raises, with cold arms, the child high in air — she 
gazes at it with glittering eyes — she nestles it in 
her bosom ; she presses it closely there and breathes 
words of passionate endearment. 

And then baptismal water is brought : and the 
ear of the dying mother hears the words that are 
uttered, and the babe is signed with the sign of the 
cross and her name is called Jessie ! 

I remember, after hours of agonizing suspense, 



68 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

during which her eager ear seems ever turned to 
catch the slightest sound of approaching wheels, 
and her eager look seems ever to say, " Have they 
come — Have they come ? " — that, when hope is al- 
most dying within us, a carriage approaches — it 
stops — " The children have arrived ! " 

But the eye seems already fixed : will it see the 
children now ? — the ear seems closed to outward 
sound — will it hear their voices ? 

Annie and Blanche are borne swiftly to their 
mother's side. She speaks ! — what a seraphic 
smile ! — how the eye clears again ! — what man- 
tling health in those pale cheeks ! — Death itself is 
forcibly driven back ! — he yields his hold on her ! — 
she will, she must, live again ! " My darlings ! " 
she passionately exclaims. 

But Annie and Blanche — how strangely still 
they are ! How thoughtful and affrighted little 
Annie's face, as, after the first burst of joy, she 
gazes down upon her mother. And Blanche, too — 
how those country roses in her cheeks are pal- 
ing ! 

Ah, the little ones ! — they cannot be deceived ! 
They see Death behind those smiles — though by 
name they know it not ! 

But now she relapses — the children are taken — 
and soon restless hands become busy, and white 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 69 

fingers are arranging work with the coverlid. See ! 
— little baby dresses are preparing there ! " JSTot 
so, not so," — she sweetly says to those whom she is 
instructing in the fashioning of them — - u this way — 
so — this way." 

The momentary illusion passes. Reason re- 
turns, and with it an apparent consciousness of 
what is approaching : for putting up her arms she 
draws down to her for a dying kiss her husband — 
the good pastor — all the nearest and dearest of 
earth who are around her. 

And now the last Friend is very near to her. 
She seems to hear him tenderly calling : and up- 
lifting her eyes to the cross she averts them no 
more. Darker the shadows that settle in that sweet 
fane — darker — darker. We kneel around the bed : 
we pray — we bitterly weep that such sweetness is 
passing from us ! We know that all is well — we 
think we are resigned — our reason tells us that it 
must be best : but ah ! these human feelings ! — 
what shall we do with them ? Did not Jesus weep 
for Lazarus? and, verily, — he recalled him from 
the dead ! We weep — but for us there is no re- 
call ! 

# # # % % 

Close the eyes — she is in Paradise ! Take thy 
seraph, Heaven ! Her name is Jessie. Souls of 



70 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

the long-departed — mother, sisters, brother — this is 
Jessie ! Welcome her ! Let her not feel strange 
among you — though with earthly eyes you never 
beheld her. Somewhere in her Father's mansion 
dwells a little sister, too, of hers. seek her out ! — 
let her not want for sweetest company ! 

* * % * Hi 

But ah, Jessie dearest, forget not the living. 
We have such, such heartache for you ! Come and 
dwell with us ! I solemnly invoke you, this sum- 
mer, to our cottage by the bay ; to the pillow your 
dear head presses no longer ; to the bedside of my 
children — your children, Jessie ! — to the lawn, by 
the sweet moonlight ; to the sands of the solemn 
sea. Your presence will not aifright me : even your 
ghostly semblance : why should it ? Did you not 
tell me, with dying lips, if come you might, come to 
me you surely would ? 

And then, the church — our own little church, 
Jessie — where first we knelt in holy communion ; 
where our children first were consecrated to God. 
Occupy the sadly- vacant seat ; kneel with me at the 
chancel-rail ; descend, but for a while, from the ra- 
diant Upper Service to the humbler Lower; and 
when Te Deum and Jubilate reverently rise, let 
me, in my deepest heart hear, through the chorist- 
ers' clear quiring, that sweet voice still ! 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 71 

And that reluctant orgaD, too ! — how shall my 
uncertain fingers know how to touch it since you 
are gone, Jessie ? What shall I say through its 
sweet pipes, now that the ears, that used to listen so, 
are closed forever ! Alas, my music all seems flown 
with you to Paradise — my heart is mute and siogs 
for me no longer ! 

=* # # # # 

My dear children, I have so wandered that I 
scarcely know where to resume. And what shall I 
say more ? I remember, as of a frightful dream, 
the dread night-watchings with her who only was — 
and is, for earth, no more ! I remember the mid- 
night fears of the terrified servant, who, for a chance 
harsh word once spoken to the sweet departed, heard 
her silvery-mournful voice calling to her through 
the house-trumpet, at the dead of night. Ah, it 
was but the voice of conscience ! "What would she 
give to recall that hasty word ! 

I remember the presence in sweet, home-places, 
of dreadful men, who must needs perform their of- 
fice, and the sight of all their harrowing parapher- 
nalia. I remember going, the last midnight of her 
stay with us, to the room of the sweet departed. A 
single dim light was burning ; the cold night-air blew 
chill through the open casement : there she lay in 
her icy shroud, just before the seeming altar of 



72 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

her own fashioning — above her the adorable Suf- 
ferer upon the cross, and beneath, on either side, 
the altar -flowers (some thoughtful hand had put 
them there) the faded spring violets and the flower- 
basket I had given her — fresh as herself — but a 
short week before. The water of her icy shroud 
dripped — dripped — slowly and with hollow sound. 
I turned back the linen from her pale face, and my 
heart turned to ashes within me, and my knees fal- 
tered, and kneeling I tried to chant a Miserere and 
a God be merciful. But no music came to me — 
only bitter, blinding tears ; until at length I said 
what I could not sing, and the good God gradually 
sent me peace. And so, at last, Jessie and I (she 
surely seemed to add her whispered utterance to 
mine !) repeated our usual evening hymn together : 
and when we came to the words, 

" may my soul on thee repose, 
And with sweet sleep my eyelids close ; 
Sleep, that may me more vigorous make, 
To serve my God when I awake : — " 

How strangely applicable to both of us ! — to the 
sleep of life — the sleep of death ! 

Nor did my heart rebel, at the close, as I tried 
composedly to utter 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 73 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow, 
Praise him, all creatures here below ; 
Praise him above, angelic host, 
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost : — 

— and at last, among that " angelic host " was 
now, for the first time, my angel, too ! 

So I lay down near her, and God gave me deep 
and sweet sleep until the morning. I awoke (a 
dreadful awaking !) to the indescribable agony of a 
new grief, after forgetful slumber — but let me not 
recall this. God was, at length, merciful to me. 

And yet, my darlings — and yet — the loss of a 
mother is an irreparable loss ! a loss, it really 
seems to me, never to be repaired but by the rep- 
aration of a re-union again, in another world. In 
our solemn litany, where comes the intercession for 
< : fatherless children," my heart, I confess (and now 
how much more earnestly than ever !) has ever in- 
voluntarily substituted motherless children. And 
O, for you, poor little birds of mine, when I think 
of a life before you filled with such appalling shocks 
— such shipwrecks of dreams and hopes and bright 
anticipations as were even ours — still more, when I 
think that, as daughters, each — 

" Tier lot is on you," 
the lot of woman — a lot so agonizingly realized to 
4 



74 MEMORIAL OF JESSIE WILLIS. 

us, in one of its forms, but even now — my heart 
bleeds for you ! 

And yet — God's will be done ! That sweet, 
fair casket, now shattered, which held all my heart's 
treasures, revealed to me from among its shattered 
fragments, that sweetest, but hardest, of all earthly 
lessons, God's will be done ! Perhaps it must needs 
have been that the casket should be broken, for 
such a pearl in its inner depths to be secured to 
my soul. 

I remember, Annie dear, that last summer, when 
walking upon the shore of the bay, you suddenly 
pointed upward and exclaimed, " Look, papa dear, 
look ! — a broken moon ! " 

The young, crescent moon had just become visi- 
ble in the evening sky. But, as I stood and gazed 
longer upon it I saw that the faint rim of the entire 
orb was still dimly visible — that darkly-completed 
circle, described by the old poet as " the old moon 
holding the young moon in its arms." 

Well, Annie dear, like that broken moon seems 
to me now the broken orb of our earthly bliss — the 
greater, by far the greater part in dark eclipse to us. 
The world and its woes have slid in between us and 
the light, and thrown their dark shadow (like that 
of the natural earth across the disc of yonder moon 
when in actual eclipse) over our life's brightness. 



TO ANNIE, BLANCHE AND JESSIE. 75 

But the light that was, is assuredly again to be ! 
The dim crescent of our bliss is destined, as years 
move on and earth rolls off its dark shadow from 
us, to gain on the dark — to gain more and more, 
until the full-orbed glory shall be ours again ! 

Let us be comforted, then. For the light of 
eternity is coming — coming ! It will be on us ere 
we are aware, and will make all sweet and bright 
again ! 










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